I'd like to think this is a wry look at the medical world from the imagined perspective of a paediatric junior doctor. In all honesty, it's probably going to be a series of rants.

Friday, 7 June 2013

NHS 111

So wait, let me get this straight:

You decide that your existing nurse-led telephone advice service, NHS (re)Direct, isn't producing the appropriate yet safe clinical advice that you would like it to, and you'd like to replace it with a better and cheaper system. Mainly cheaper.

You decide that the best way to do this would be to replace the nursing staff whose job is to triage patients over the telephone with people who have no medical training, and you expect that this will make the clinical advice given to patients safer and more effective. You think that this will help take the pressure off the enormously overburdened emergency departments.

What? We pay you to run a national health system? WE pay YOU to run OUR national health system?